


Libations

by lightningwaltz



Category: Hellenistic Religion & Lore, The Oresteia - Aeschylus
Genre: Companions, Emotional Sex, M/M, Madness, Neck Kissing, Religion Kink, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:30:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Orestes holds on harder, and they lie down together, in a mess of dirt and dried blood. Soon- very soon- Pylades will insist on continuing to clean Orestes. For now though, his very bones want to savor this sense of homecoming.
 (Pylades finds Orestes at Delphi.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElDiablito_SF](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/gifts).



> Yuletide gift for ElDiablito_SF! Thank you for a very inspiring yuletide letter! 
> 
> While canon reviewing, I was reminded all over again how fascinating Pylades is across the various greek plays. In some he is, to quote your letter, a "Good Friend." And in others, like the Libation Bearers, there's something almost otherworldly about him. Those two things ended up combining for me as I wrote this fic. I wanted to explore him as someone who is extremely loyal to Orestes, but also strangely in tune with Apollo (if also a bit ambivalent about him and the role he's played in fucking around with Orestes.) While writing this fic, I just became so increasingly sad for these characters. The Trojan war clearly has this inter-generational effect on so many people, and that blight certainly didn't pass these two by. However, Orestes does eventually survive the trials the gods put him through, and I really wanted to show how having someone like Pylades might have helped with that. 
> 
> Again, thanks for a lovely letter and I hope you have a good end of the year!

The breeze scatters the scent of charred meat and wood smoke; mundane things transformed into the divine. The columns of the temple smell like years and years of laurel. 

Delphi is perfumed by things cut down in the prime of life. 

The distant odor of blood also fills Pylades' mouth and nostrils, as subtle and slinking as incense. However, there's no way of knowing if that's because Orestes is here. After Troy, the whole _world_ seems to have drowned in blood. The sea is still dark, but no one thinks it resembles wine anymore. 

This is not a day for petitioners. There will be no one seeking to understand the overwhelming and changing ocean tides. No one asking what to expect of invaders from the sea. No one asking about conception and children, as so many petitioners often did. 

The oracle is likewise absent. While chasing tales of a man with wild eyes and blood-stained hands, Pylades has heard the tales of the Pythia. She never sounded like the same woman, even to people who had met her on the same day. She was young, she was middle-aged, she was old. She was beautiful and she was ugly, she was short and she was tall. She spoke in the common vernacular and she spoke like some ancient and obscure poem. She comforted people and she frightened them. 

And, right now, she is not here. 

Pylades hears the crackling of twigs. Like running, like fleeing. The sound of it trickles away and away, melting into the distance. His heart still pounds, as though he is a deer being hunted. 

He looks at a cluster of brownish, indeterminate birds on a nearby tree branch. They watch him and they are silent. 

Everything rings with all the days and years that have come before. It rings with all the days and years to come

But everything is in stillness. 

Here, the architecture is very fine. Vaunting and impressive. And yet, when Pylades enters the Temple of Apollo, he mostly remembers entering a certain cave as a child. Willingly venturing into an abyss. It's almost as dark inside this temple, despite this being a monument to a god of the sun. Pylades is not surprised by this. Devotion means understanding something inside and out, even a deity. Devotion means understanding that light creates shadows. 

Inside, there are no priests. There's barely any dust, but there's a sense of decay in the air. Sometimes he thinks there are mosaics of monstrous things, staring at him, wishing to tear him to pieces. Whenever he looks at the walls, though, they are blank. Sometimes there are clawed hands slowly tugging at his clothes. Whenever he tries to pry them away, he comes away with empty air. Pylades makes a bargain with himself; one foot in front of the other, eyes staring straight ahead, ignoring illusions. 

At the end of the sanctum, there's a figure sprawled on the ground, lying between a weak lamp, and rust-dark sword. Pylades knows the man the way he knows the tempo of his own heart. 

"Orestes!" Speech seems almost sacrilegious in this hushed space. He allows for it anyway.

He kneels down and touches bony shoulders. "Orestes." This time he whispers it, running his fingers through matted hair, chanting until he's not the only one awake in this temple. 

"Apollo." Orestes' speed is as inhuman as the deity he invokes. He goes from reclining, to kneeling and clasping his arms around Pylades' legs. "Please, please, please protect me. I did what you demanded! Please, please, please." He seems to get stuck on that last word, repeating it a few inches from Pylade's toes. 

The sword-sharp claws are stirring in the air again. Now there's echo of flapping wings. And yet there's nothing to be seen. 

Pylades bends down, cups Orestes' chin in his hand, and makes him look up. His eyes are filmy and indistinct, and perspiration beads over his forehead. It creates rivulets down his temples. 

"Orestes," Pylades says, so quiet he can barely hear himself. "It's just me. I'm not Apollo." Even just whispering it seems like an invitation to catastrophe. This is the one occasion where he will risk it, though. The one person. 

Orestes reaches up, and Pylades takes comfort in this until that hand comes to rest on the side of his face. Complete supplication.

"Forgive me, Apollo," he apologizes. "But I can always recognize you." He lowers his head again, and the arm around Pylades' legs tightens like a snake bearing down on its prey. 

Pylades takes in the sight of Orestes. The clothes stiff with blood, the gaunt cheeks, the dullness of his skin. Orestes, alive after so many months of not _knowing_ for sure. He makes an instant decision, even as he can sense the possible implications filtering down to future generations. He just doesn't know if it means salvation or doom.

"Alright," he says, making his voice even gentler than before. He rests a soothing hand on the crown of Orestes' head. "I am here. I have a plan to protect you." 

Orestes shakes and rattles like a man left out in the cold at night. Then he collapses, just like something being sacrificed. Giving in to the fatal strike. Pylades worries that he caused Orestes heart to give way, but he crouches down and relaxes at the sound of Orestes' breathing. 

Pylades carries him out of the temple. Orestes has long since been taller and broader, but months of deprivation and torment had had their effect. He's easier to lift, even if he is dead weight. When they're outside and the sun stings his eyes, Pylades remembers that he left the sword and lamp behind. Maybe he'll retrieve them later. But maybe that's the perfect offering for this kind of story. 

The air outdoors seems thicker now, humid and cloying. Pylades can practically drink down this scent of piety and need. He carries and carries Orestes, long after his arms have started to burn. He only sets him down when he comes across a spring. There are no vengeful creatures here. Nothing that threatens to choke them. Just empty air and the sound of water rushing over stone. 

*

During Orestes' first year in Phocis, he'd been a somewhat standoffish and reticent child. Pylades had taken little notice of him, although they were age mates. Even though his mother, Anaxibia, frequently admonished him for ignoring Orestes. One quiet day, though, they'd decided to explore a system of caves that Pylades' nurse had warned him to avoid. At first it had been what he had expected. Damp cavern walls and the occasional appearance of a bat. The latter thing had led to them laughing together for the first time, and Pylades had decided that Orestes wasn't arrogant at all. He was just quiet in a way that reminded him of grownups whispering together about war.

The further they traveled in, though, the more Pylades realized they had no place being in a place untouched by human hands. The darkness was like a thick cloak dropped over their heads. Their lamplight failed to pierce it in any meaningful way. Around the time they knew they were in peril, Pylades had managed a spectacular fall. He'd twisted his angle and bashed his head. As his blood soaked Orestes' fingers, he'd begged to be left him behind. That was the rule of how the grown men approached such things: if someone was gravely injured in here, they were abandoned. It had nothing to do with cruelty and everything to do with logic. Survival.

"Don't act like that. If we're leaving this place, we're leaving together." Orestes had sounded like a child playacting at being a king, but it had humbled Pylades far worse than his wounds. They's had had no love for each other at the time, but Orestes had been willing to let Pylades lean on him (before Orestes' growth spurt, he had been much shorter.) He'd been willing to retrace their steps, as slow as a turtle. He'd been willing to face dehydration just so Pylades might get to survive. 

Thus, something that should have been finished in hours dragged on for almost two days. Pylades asked everything he suddenly wanted to know, and Orestes spoke of his childhood. He recited all the facts the way some recited litanies to the gods. His mother had been attentive to her children- something that would be forgotten in later years- but she seemed to wear invisible armor when speaking to them. When Clytemnestra sent Orestes away, she'd hadn't bothered to conceal her logic; Anaxibia was kind, Anaxibia ran a lively household, and Anaxibia had a son near Orestes' age (as compared to his remaining, nearly-grown sisters.) And, through luck or virtue, Anaxibia had escaped being cursed by the gods.

"So what does she have?" Pylades had asked, during an hour where they paused to rest. Orestes had been cleaning blood from his forehead, and staring hard at Pylades' swollen ankle. "Luck or virtue?" 

Orestes had made no answer. Instead, his healing, soothing hands did what they could. Pylades drifted off. Not into sleep, but into hunger and pain. That's when Apollo appeared to him. Here, in this world barred off from the sun, sacred light still found its way in. He wouldn't remember what was said, but when he woke up, he grabbed Orestes' hands for the first time. Later, he would grow addicted to touching Orestes. Holding him. But that wouldn't be for many years to come. For now, something lurked in the shadows around them. Its claws skittered over Pylades' spine, and he wished he could run.

"We have to keep moving. Now." 

So they did. They moved and moved until they encountered the search party. Until they grew into men who missed the Trojan war, but lived with its ghosts all the same. 

* 

Now, at the spring of Delphi, Pylades lets a piece of cloth trail through the sacred spring. He doesn't fully realize how much he'd been expecting it to feel different until he touches it and it's just water. Maybe a little warmer than the norm, but the sunbeams refracting across the surface explains that. Still, he uses it to clean Orestes' face, and it does the job. That's all he needs. 

Orestes starts to stir when Pylades reaches his arm. They hold hands, and when Orestes pulls back there's a tinge of blood on Pylades' palm. The transferal of death. 

"Oh." Orestes looks down at Pylades' stained skin. He sounds so old. "Pylades I'm sorry." 

However, lucidity is a blessed thing. Hearing his own name from Orestes' tongue is even better. 

"I don't mind," he says, carefully lifting Orestes up and embracing him. "I was trying to find you, after all." 

"And this is what you expected?" Orestes pulls back and his smile is as bitter as a lungful of smoke. 

"I was trying to find you," Pylades repeats. "And now I have." It's all that matters, in the end. 

He watches Orestes throat work, like he's swallowing rapidly. "This temple is part of your father's land, isn't it?" 

Pylades nods. "I followed rumors until I ended up here." 

"I must have been trying to return home to you." 

It's an odd thing to say, at first. Pylades had been there for Orestes' conspiring with Electra. He'd been the one to encourage the murder of Clytemnestra (better that, than gainsaying a god's demand.) He'd been there on the day of her murder.

But after all that, Orestes had run away from Pylades just as he'd run away from everyone in Argos. 

Then again, he and Orestes had become strange outside of Phocis. Adrift, cut free of context. Home had been the presence of each other. Home had been the sunlight on their face as they'd left caves together. Nothing seemed right after they had left. Maybe it made sense for them to be parted. However briefly.

Orestes holds on harder, and they lie down together, in a mess of dirt and dried blood. Soon- very soon- Pylades will insist on continuing to clean Orestes. For now though, his very bones want to savor this sense of homecoming. 

"What happened to you, Orestes?" 

"The erinyes are chasing me. They chase everyone who kills their relatives, it would seem. Even though Apollo himself demanded it of me. But... I can't blame them. I did it rationally, I didn't take leave of my senses, and I looked her in the face when I did it." With each sentence- with each new thought- Orestes sounds like a different person. Then clings to Pylades, hard, and for a while they are silent. "So I guess they want me to know what madness _is_ like."

_A flash of memory, as relentless as the point of a dagger; Orestes on his knees, begging, saying he did not know Iphigenia or Agamemnon. Their tragedy had played out well before he could talk. Orestes repeating over and over, clumsily, that he did know Clytemnestra. He was honor bound to hate her for what she did. And he did. He loathed her and Aegisthus. But he still knew his mother._

 _Apollo is an empty space in Pylades' memories, always, always, always. But he can translate the god. He can always grab Orestes' hands and say 'here's what Apollo wants. Here's how you avoid the fate of Niobe or Marsyas. Here's how you placate the gods and live another day.' He's been so sure of such things, ever since they survived the deep caverns._

"How are you now?" 

Orestes shudders a little. "I'm glad that you're here. I'm sorry I left you." 

"I was going to take care of your wounds." Pylades says, reluctant to move. 

"... None of the blood is my own. I'm just _dirty_." Orestes hisses that last word, as though its a judgement on his soul. Immutable, incontrovertible, eternal. 

"That can be fixed," Pylades says, and means it.

He gets Orestes out of his clothes, and Orestes allows for that. Even though he fully knows how to undress himself. Before he steps into the sacred spring, he points at Pylades. The gesture is hesitant but certain. 

_You, also._

When Pylades is likewise naked, they both walk into the water. Blood streaks away from Orestes, until every bobbing motion of the water dilutes it. First red, then pinkish, then gone. They hold each others hands, almost hard enough to break bone, and watch this last remnant of Clytemnestra's assassination. 

There's an apology lurking in Pylade's throat, like the edge of a scream. But if he had urged inaction instead, then Apollo would have been tormenting Orestes instead. In fact, Orestes would likely be dead. Therefore, when the god of the sun had made his will known, Pylades had urged a certain choice. Because there _hadn't_ been a choice. 

Orestes sinks down into the water, all the way. Pylades' hand is the only thing linking him to the world of air. When he emerges, he places both hands on Pylades' shoulders. He kisses him hard and desperate, like Pylades might vanish. Like he might melt into the water that laps against their bodies. 

_I'm here. I'm not leaving._

He kisses a path away from Orestes' lips, moving down and down. Soon he's sucking on Orestes' neck, and licking newly clean skin. He does so until he inspires soft moans, and hands reaching for his hips. Pulling him in closer. 

When they leave the spring, they end up sprawling out on Pylades' abandoned clothes. It's not a very good shield from the elements. There's pebbles digging into Pylades' skin, and they will need to clean off some dirt after. 

But it doesn't matter. Pylades watches spring water dripping from his hair, raining across Orestes' skin. He traces their path over Orestes' body, licking chest and sides, waist and thighs. When he sucks Orestes into his mouth, Orestes repeats Pylades' name over and over, until it's impossible to imagine being recently called by another name. A god's name. After Orestes finishes he pulls Pylades back on top of him, and reaches between their bodies. He works Pylades' cock with a hand that is somehow shaky and confident, all at once. 

"Thank you for finding me," Orestes repeats, over and over, and he stares up at Pylades like he's looking at something sacred. 

*

They sleep the rest of the day, and on into the night. Pylades digs out the blankets he carries with him on his travels. They bundle together into them, and cling to each other the way they always do when things become too cold. Whenever they wake up, they kiss. First sleepily, and then with need. Their bodies intertwine together as they have countless times in the past. They rock against each other, chasing instinct, chasing each other. And for one night only, they don't worry about gods or duty. 

At dawn, Pylades wakes to Orestes lying on top of him. He knows, immediately, that this is different. There's nothing lissome and easy about Orestes' body. No serene, knowing kisses. The air is cool, and the wind scrapes over his skin like sharpened nails. He hears wings in the distance, but he can't see anything by moonlight.

"They're still after me. The erinyes. Can you feel it?" Orestes' eyes are wide, the pupils swallowing up the iris. "Apollo said he had a plan for me earlier. I wish he would tell me."

Pylades waits for the god to say something, too. To curse him for his subterfuge, or to offer Orestes assistance. But all they can hear is the sound of the spring, like disconcertingly gentle music. 

_Now that Apollo has what he wants out of Orestes, has he abandoned him?_

"Go to Athens," Pylades says, at last. The blanket has become tangled, so he pulls it more snugly around their bodies. "Appeal to the gods there. It's been done before. Maybe Apollo will hear you there." 

Would he? Pylades is not fully sure. But right now Orestes looks like a man begging to be left behind. Begging for the end. 

Pylades will ensure that they keep moving until they reach the sun again.


End file.
